Filing: SCOTUS should reject Arizona's bid to delay prison takeover

Arizona’s prison health care system could soon face a court ordered change in leadership, a development that would affect thousands of people held in state facilities, including residents from Tucson and Southern Arizona. Attorneys representing incarcerated people are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the state’s request to postpone the takeover, arguing that years of failed promises, fines and court supervision have not produced constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care.

The dispute centers on an order by U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver, who appointed Annette Chambers-Smith, a former Ohio prison official, to take control of Arizona’s prison health care system by Oct. 19. Chambers-Smith would serve as a receiver, giving her authority to run key parts of the system, including hiring and firing staff and changing contracts with NaphCare, the private company Arizona uses to provide inmate health care. The state is seeking to delay that transition while it appeals Silver’s decision.

The case has been active for 14 years, beginning with a lawsuit filed in 2012 over conditions in Arizona prisons. The inmate attorneys, from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Prison Law Office, told the Supreme Court that the state has repeatedly acknowledged problems and promised improvements without delivering lasting compliance. They said the failures have led to serious medical and mental health neglect, including preventable deaths and suicides, while people in custody remain dependent on the state for treatment.

Arizona’s prison system serves about 25,000 people in state run facilities. A 2023 injunction ordered the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry to meet detailed requirements for staffing and patient care. The state agreed to follow that injunction, but its own lawyers do not dispute that the system still falls short of the legal standards. The inmate attorneys said that continuing failures leave people imprisoned in Arizona exposed to unconstitutional conditions, including those who may have medical needs requiring care unavailable or delayed in the current system.

Silver’s concerns predate the 2023 order. In 2022, she issued a 200 page assessment describing care as “plainly grossly inadequate” and concluding that state officials were acting with deliberate indifference to substantial risks of harm. The state has also faced millions of dollars in fines, including penalties imposed during former Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration. According to the filing opposing the delay, those sanctions and repeated assurances from officials did not resolve the underlying problems.

The state now argues that the court should focus on developments since Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Ryan Thornell to lead the corrections department. State attorneys say Thornell is making progress and should receive more time to correct the system internally. They have asked the Supreme Court to consider alternatives to transferring authority to a receiver, warning that placing critical prison functions in private hands would be a serious step while the state appeals the original ruling.

The inmate attorneys counter that Silver already considered that argument and found that the post-2023 improvements were not enough. They also said the state’s history makes further extensions unreasonable. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn Silver’s order, leaving the Supreme Court as the state’s last avenue for stopping or postponing the takeover. The emergency request is directed first to Justice Elena Kagan, who handles urgent matters from Arizona and other states in the region. She could rule on her own or refer the request to the full court, and no date has been announced for a decision.

The filing also argues that Silver designed the receivership to be powerful but not unlimited. Chambers-Smith could change personnel and revise NaphCare’s contract, but she could not simply order Arizona to spend more money without following a process requiring notice and consultation with state officials. The inmate lawyers also pointed out that Chambers-Smith was not imposed on the state without input. Her name was suggested by Arizona officials before Silver selected her.

For people across Tucson and the rest of Arizona, the case represents a conflict over whether prison health care can be repaired through continued state management or requires outside control. Silver wrote that the longer unconstitutional conditions continue, the more harm incarcerated people suffer. She concluded that after years of litigation, the state had not shown even a semblance of compliance with the injunction or the Constitution. The inmate attorneys are now asking the Supreme Court to allow Chambers-Smith to begin work as scheduled, saying an extraordinary intervention is necessary to end preventable deaths, suicides and untreated severe pain in Arizona prisons.